Category Archives: Aurebesh to English

Despite the war between the Jedi and the Sith, women are still expected too look their best, and even in a galaxy far, far away sex sells.

This sultry advertisement can be seen on several planets across the galaxy but is featured most prominently on the Republic’s fleet hub, Carrick Station. The ad draws inspiration from Calvin Klein’s famous Obsession campaign right down to the to suggestive tag line across the model’s mouth.

As is often the case, the Aurebesh on this poster is mirrored and must be flipped to be properly read. The design element of the mirrored M or “mern” glyphs works regardless of the flipped design, which may explain why this mistake slipped through the cracks.

I don’t know the meaning of the double M’s but I’m happy to provide baseless speculation after a few minutes poking around on wookieepedia. Moltokian Maquillage is the provider of the galaxy’s finest, all natural makeup and cosmetics. If you’ve embraced the Light, you’ll find the most elegant lip-glosses and blushes. Even if you’ve turned to the Dark Side, MM has you covered with discreet foundation to hide even your most debased corruption blemishes. Moltokian Maquillage can be found on sale at the poshest establishments in Coruscant’s Core Plaza, Nar Shaddaa’s Promenade shopping district, and Dromund Kaas’ shadow markets.

Update: The M logo which I’d guessed applied to a cosmetics company may in fact be the branding used by the Coruscant Market, and is seen on many posters advertising the fabulous shopping options available around the Republic’s capital.

Update Again: While researching signs on the moon CZ-198, I came across this poster again which, unlike the version I looked at originally, did not have its edges cropped. A tagline (tying it more directly the Coruscant Market brand) can be read at the bottom of the sign. In addition, I think there might be some vertical text on the left edge of the poster, but it’s too blurry for me to read. I have revised my translation based on the newer image, and it can be seen in the link above.

Update! Update! Update: When this poster was added as a stronghold decoration, I took a third pass at this image, and I do believe I have finally the unlocked last of its secrets. I have updated my recreation with a translation of the text of the left side of the image.

Anyone familiar with the Aurebesh will have no doubt encountered many signs in the game that seem to defy decryption. Sometimes glyphs are shaped unusually, often letters are inverted, ligatures appear where they shouldn’t, and the whole simply doesn’t make sense. This is clearly not Aurebesh according to Hoyle.

And that’s because it isn’t. Nevertheless many of these signs can still be translated; you just need to try a different font. That font is Erik Schroeder’s Galactic Basic. In the course of his fascinating and extensive research into decoding the writing seen in Return of the Jedi, Schroeder discovered that the glyphs seen in the movie came from a design for alien writing (seen below) created by the great Joe Johnston at ILM in 1976. These symbols popped up in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back before being seen prominently as the language used in the scan of the shuttlecraft Tydirium.

I assume that the original Aurebesh was designed using low resolution captures from the movies, but Galactic Basic was derived from Johnston’s original glyphs. While Aurebesh has become the official font, Galactic Basic more accurately recreates what appeared on screen. Even though the two fonts share some similarities, there are differences that render them mostly incompatible.

Once you know what to look for, it’s easy to tell which font is being used, and it adds meaning to a whole bunch of signage in the game. From an in-universe standpoint, I would explain the differences as simply two related languages that use many of the same letters, such as English and French. A great many characters in Star Wars lore are polyglots, so it doesn’t strike me as odd that we encounter variations in similar languages across the galaxy. However, for simplicity’s sake I consider both to be Aurebesh since that is the canonical name for this writing and that both were inspired by the same source material.

This sign can be found in several places across the galaxy, most prominently in the Bounty Brokers Association’s section of the Fleets’ Cartel Bazaars, Hutta, Ord Mantell and even Ziost. Unlike the versions seen elsewhere, the sign on Ord Mantell does not have horizontally flipped side panels, so it at least can be read right to left.

BHG is almost certainly the Bounty Hunter’s Guild run by the Mandalorians. A Mandalorian crest, which first appeared on Boba Fett’s armor, appears on the right and center panels. The central display is dominated by a list of bounties with charming, Star Warsy names. The rewards for each bounty is written in both Aurebesh numbering formats: the standard numerals and “binary” dots and dashes. The right panel includes rules for hyperspace pursuit and the left pinpoints the location of another bounty, although most of the text, including the target’s last name, is too low resolution to clearly read.

This post was written as I downloaded the latest patch, but I hope have some first impressions of Knights of the Eternal Throne next week.

Like many of us, I am part Wookiee, so I’m taking it easy this week to celebrate Life Day with family on Kashyyyk. In honor of Black Friday I’d like to shine a light on my favorite Aurebesh sign in the game. This abstracted, three-eyed alien could not be happier about the SALE proclaimed atop the sign. That this simple yet clever poster is not available as a stronghold decoration makes me sad. Just sayin’.

Safe travels and happy eating, everyone! I’ll see you on the other side of Knights of the Eternal Throne!

This week, I’ve highlighted two posters from Justicar Territory on Coruscant. The Justicar’s Brigade is not one for subtly, but these posters display two distinct styles worthy of examination.

The first one is almost patriotic with its splash of stars and stripes. The promise of protection alludes to the Justicar’s origins as a group of disgruntled soldiers looking to retake their neighborhoods abandoned by the government after Darth Malgus’ Sack of Coruscant during the war.

The hopeful tone, however, did not last. Other posters are much more ominous in design and message. This second poster’s sickly green color and warning make it clear that the Justicars are less interested in protection than maintaining order.

The inverted chevrons in both posters illustrate this change. In the first, they sweep upward and indeed seem to lift and support the planet at the top of the poster. The second poster, however, is weighted in the opposite direction, and the chevrons have become oppressive and point the composition down. You don’t need to read the Aurebesh to know exactly what the message is.

Justicars love their propaganda and there is much more to be found. I’m certain to return to this subject in the future.

This week’s post is a follow up to last week’s in which I encountered an example of a rarely used Aurebesh number system and incorrectly guessed how to properly read it.

In doing some research I discovered that it is possible to write Aurebesh numbers in two different formats, in the same way we use both Arabic and Roman numerals in English. With this new information, I have corrected the translation in the entry about Dromund Kaas signs.

The most common form of Aurebesh numerals more or less match the appearance of Aurebesh letters, but the second technical style uses pips and dashes and is perhaps related to droids’ binary language.

I was able to find examples of both styles in canonical sources and in SWTOR and imagine that most citizens of the galaxy use them interchangeably.

The origins of Aurebesh’s dual number systems, however, are murky as far as I can tell. The original Aurebesh guide from West End Games did not indicate glyphs for numbers, and two of the first fan-created fonts from the 1990’s included their own style of numbers. The iterations that followed use differing variations of those styles and have found their way into official content. I suspect which type of numbers we encounter in the Star Wars universe simply comes down to which font the artists who created the prop, scene or illustration had on hand.

Looking at both, it’s clear to me that the styles were developed separately from the original Aurebesh. The technical numbers with their pips and dashes are appropriately futuristic, but they don’t really match the rest of the alphabet. While the Arabic style more closely matches the Aurebesh, the glyphs too closely duplicate our own numbers for my taste. Those numbers could appear in a non-Star Wars setting and remain perfectly readable.

However, we can assume that the history and development of writing in the Star Wars universe is at least as diverse as it is in our own. The letters of the Aurabesh could very well have come from one corner of the galaxy, and the numbers from another. At any rate, be glad that we don’t count like the Gree and have to recite multiplication tables using hexadecimal color codes!

A commenter on reddit suggested I seek out a pair of signs that pop up in a few places around Dromund Kaas. Sure enough, these two really neat looking displays do indeed call out for translation.

The first is a diagram of Kaas City and its surroundings. I like how it casually mentions how Dromund Kaas is the home of the Sith Empire in the same way a map of Boston might mention it’s the home of the Red Sox.

The spaceport bullet point misspells Kaas as Kass, but I am certainly in no position to judge. I have no doubt residents have heard every variation of jokes about living in the “Kaas end of space” or being “Kaasholes”, so that mistakes like this have surely become common place.

The text section seems also to swap the glyphs for commas and periods as well, but Sith schools have become infamous these days for preferring to teach effective lightning use and introspective poetry over proper punctuation.

The sign describes the many of the creatures that inhabit the jungles outside the city with particular warnings about the large-eared predators that pose a threat to people and technology alike.

The taxi routes displayed on this sign are accurate to the game at launch when there was no direct taxi access to the Dark Temple Approach from central Kaas City.

Next up, is this map kiosk, which trades helpful information for intimidation and a stern reminder of where you are.

This display is zoomed in on Kaas City’s central district and helpfully has plenty of information about where you shouldn’t go and with whom you shouldn’t go.

Just another perk of living in the Sith Empire.

In translating I removed the hyphenation that was used to evenly squeeze in more words but awkwardly broke them up. I also took a guess at the numbers in the Hubs listing. Should I come across other uses of this system, I’ll adjust this if I find more information.

I’m sure I flew by this poster a hundred times before I ever noticed it on the Republic Fleet. Unlike many other signs and posters, it doesn’t seem to have been used much around the galaxy despite the fact it features one of the movies’ most infamous background characters: the loveable Gonk Droid.

The prominent Y features in a lot of signage around the game and I assume it is the logo or shorthand for a large manufacturing firm, which I’ve decided to call “Yirt Pan-Galactic Industries,” after the name for the Aurebesh Y.

This sign, like many others, uses the Æ glyph, enth, as an ampersand. Since there is no official Aurebesh ampersand, and enth looks a bit like one, it seems like a reasonable substitution.

Within the game world, there are no true Power Droid NPCs like the one in the poster, but four small Power Droid pets were included in some Cartel Market packs. Gonk droids also exist in the game, but, as anyone who has played an Agent knows, they look rather different than their film counterparts, even having arms and long legs. I suspect as the droid’s design was refined over the centuries, articulated limbs were deemed inefficient and unnecessary.

Greetings, sentients! This blog will be devoted to all things related to the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, but I reserve the right to digress into general Star Wars territory as well.

The origin of this blog came on a patch day some time ago, during which I perused my screen shot folder to kill some time. I came across this snapshot from the famous HK-55 montage in chapter 4 and decided to decode the Aurebesh. Click on the thumbnails below to see the results.

I was curious to see how much thought went into the alien text that filled the screen. The meaning of the prominent parts was pretty obvious, but I was pleasantly surprised that the Terminator-esque readout was consistent and logical within the context. I’d often stopped and taken a moment to translate some of the signage spread around the game worlds and I thought maybe some other folks out there might be interested too.

Now, I know that I’m not the first to undertake such a project, and I’m not sure how much interest there is in discovering that Kolto barrels in flashpoints are marked “Kolto” and a neighborhood watch sign on Corellia reads “Watch.” So I figure I’ll also opine on other aspects of the game as the mood strikes me.

As for who I am and why you should care, well, I can only address the first question. I’m one of those old fogeys who, primed by Jack Kirby comics and Star Trek re-runs, was the perfect age back in 1977 for Star Wars to burn itself into my brain. And my fondness for it has never left. From the comic books and trading cards of my youth to the pen and paper RPG and computer games of more recent times, I’ve never stopped being a fan.

I’m not much of a computer gamer and my last console was a Sega Genesis, but I was a World of Warcraft junkie until burning out during Mists of Pandaria and have played SWTOR since launch. Aside from the setting, I find the relaxed pace of SWTOR a nice fit for my MMO jones.

Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you’ll pop on by and see what’s new in the worlds of Aurebesh.